UPDATED at 10:30 a.m.
By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – Central Illinois Regional Airport officials are recommending passengers who are scheduled to fly Delta Airlines to check Delta’s website or go to the airport to verify flight status as the airline recovers from a computer glitch which had grounded flights worldwide for several hours this morning.
“That’s the best place to get the information,” CIRA spokeswoman Fran Strebing told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin. “I would hate for anyone to miss out if their flight is running on schedule later today.”
Strebing noted Delta is CIRA’s largest carrier. It runs several daily flights to and from Atlanta and Minneapolis.
“It could possibly affect a few hundred people today coming in and out of CIRA,” Strebing said. “As you can imagine it has backed things up worldwide, so it will take some time to untangle the schedule.”
Delta announced at about 7:30 a.m. that the ground stoppage has been lifted and the airline has resumed limited service. The airline said customers should still expect flight delays and cancellations.
Strebing said the first flight to Minneapolis has departed but the first flight to and from Atlanta has been canceled and more delays are expected throughout the day.
Delta issued social media messages to its customers early Monday morning indicating that its IT systems were down everywhere. The airline is promising waivers and refunds to some customers who are severely affected.
Eric Stock can be reached at eric.stock@cumulus.com.
